Did Empire Matter? Review of Adam McKeown Online Presentation. Tuesday November 8, 2011. 2:00 - 3:30 pm Eastern Standard Time

LINK: http://mediasite.cidde.pitt.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=830f75a04b794876b5dfda06a4012802

By Guillermo Pineda

Why this question?

¤  Because a large literature of colonialism and migration studies in Southeast Asia focused on the British Empire as the main actor during the 18th and 19th Century.

¤  However, ¤  McKeown hasn’t seen a BIG role of the Empire toward migration

trends in Asia and/or in the rest of the globe.

¤  Why? ¤  Less than 10% of Indians or 3% of Chinese were indentured to

Europeans. (Great Narrative).

¤  Empire has been hardly a coherent unit in Asia. Specially in regard to India during the 19th and 20th Century.

Size matters

Migration played a HUGE role reshaping the world

Where to start the “empire” analysis?

¤ INDIA ¤  IN INDIA less than 10% of the migrations were

indentured. ¤ 2/3 were Tamil ¤ At least 97% went to the British Empire ¤ 10% indentured in European plantations ¤ Moved through family and village networks

First BIG WOW!

One more similarity!!!

New Conclusions

¤ The British Empire did nothing to override larger economic cycles.

¤ Once a flow is established the market and its processes continued.

¤ The British Empire was in fact a fragment that had lots of fragmentations (local empowerment) that didn’t allowed for them to control the migration flux.

¤ The Empire DID HAVE strong influence only in the destinations (migration via a laissez faire Asia).

One more Conclusion

¤  MIGRATIONS NETWORKS and the INFORMATION it involved was as fundamental then as it is now.

What about other Empires?

¤  Russian and Japanese were the most interventionists.

¤  Qing opened Manchuria to frontier colonization.

¤  U.S.A. excluded Asians from White Settler territories.

¤  Dutch & French relaxed regulations via the chaos of its un-ruling in the territories.

¤  EACH EMPIRE MATTER DIFFERENTLY.